HP Vice President Tom LaRocca, who also oversees HP's PartnerOne channel program, is leading the smartphone effort. HP's Enterprise Group has also brought in Mark Angelino, a former high-level Sprint and Salesforce.com executive, as senior vice president of global distribution.

"Our intention is to bring a fully serviceable set of services to the consumer and commercial markets based on the Palm OS," Stephen DiFranco, vice president and general manager of HP's Americas Solution Partners Organization (SPO), told CRN this week.

"To a reseller doing data center, I can have a practice with Palm devices from HP because that device can be managed and secured through the data center," he said.